Fallen Angels
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Fallen Angels is kind of exhausting and kind of exhilarating. It will appeal to the kinds of people you see in the Japanese animation section of the video store, with their sleeves cut off so you can see their tattoos. And to those who subscribe to more than three film magazines. And to members of garage bands. And to art students. It's not for your average moviegoers--unless of course, they want to see something new.
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Fallen Angels (墮落天使) is a film by Wong Kar-wai released in 1995, and something in-between a sequel and a companion film for Chungking Express. Like the latter film, its plot (a jaded hitman in a complicated relationship with his female manager agrees to One Last Job) is incidental; the real point of the film is to depict Hong Kong as Wong perceives it, a cramped urban nightscape of bright lights and frantic movement.
Not to be confused with the often-banned novel of the same name.
Tropes used in Fallen Angels include:
- Cannot Spit It Out: Wong's manager is in love with him but can't manage to say so out loud. So she dresses in a leather minidress, fishnet stockings and high heels, in the hope that he'll take the hint.
- A Date with Rosie Palms: Wong's manager pleasures herself, fantasizing about him.
- Film Noir
- Guns Akimbo: Wong's specialty.
- The Nameless: Wong's manager is only known as The Agent.
- One Last Job
- Professional Killer: Wong Chi-ming.
- Shout-Out: There are multiple references to Chungking Express, to the point of Continuity Nod, even though the film is not technically a sequel.
- The Speechless: He Qiwu, a drifter who ekes out a living breaking into stores at night and "opening" them for his own benefit, has gone mute from eating too many canned pineapples past their sell-by date (as seen in Chungking Express).
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What exactly did He Qiwu do to the guy he was following around at the end?